


A Fireside Q&A with Aimeric

by fichuntie



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, Gossip, M/M, Not quite sex shaming?, Perfume, Power Dynamics, Sexual Fantasy, camp talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-24 09:42:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15627978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fichuntie/pseuds/fichuntie
Summary: The men gather around the fire after a day's march and training. Gossip first turns to the ice cold Prince Laurent and then to the general question: "How exactly do nobles get a leg over?"Aimeric provides an answer. Jord struggles to keep his desires in check.





	1. Chapter 1

The camp was settling slowly, but more quickly than before, into a routine as tents were pitched and armor shed. Each man bore themselves heavily, exhausted from the cut of Laurent and Damen’s orders. The servants rushed to prepare for the dinner, aware of the riotous hunger they’d be facing once camp set up was complete. Jord went about his captaincy in detail, correcting a few soldiers and sending a few others to Pascal to address strains. Within an hour, men were enjoying the bread and wine with the relish of the thoroughly exhausted. The groupings were still divided between the Prince and the Regent’s retinues, but the more hardworking mercenaries had begun to mix more easily between the factions. The bright red had faded under sweat and dirt from hard labor for Laurent. Jord surveyed the camp critically and felt deep satisfaction when it passed his own muster. 

He looked for Damen and found him, sitting with the group of sword fighters he had been training with more after the first actual battle. Jord was becoming used to Damen, darkly tanned and marked with gold, sitting with his Veretian friends. War did stranger things to men than camaraderie. And Damen fit in well with Orlant, Rochert, and the other straightforward men from the Prince’s retinue. He also seemed unintimidated by Aimeric’s nobility, a feat Jord was jealous of. Jord could barely met the noble’s green eyes through the smoke of the fire as he joined the group. 

Jord settled down with his ratios near the other soldiers. Orlant stirred the fire, laughing heartily. Aimeric looked exhausted in particular. Jord remembered the heave of Aimeric’s loyalty as he pushed himself further, impressive even with the strength of youth. Sweat had curled his chestnut hair and stained his brocade tunic where it clung tightly at his neck. Now, Aimerics’s slender fingers prepared each bite of cheese, bread, and meat with the kind of precision he had seen masters display before tendering morsels to their pets. He lounged relaxed with the other Prince’s men by the fire with the undertunic laces loose. 

“Ah, remember when he ran Govart through? Think he’s ever run someone through with his cock?”

As usual, the ribald comments turned to Laurent. Warmed with drink, the guard’s laughter turned cruel. Aimeric’s dark brows furrowed with each comment, and the pout of his mouth turned down sharply. Jord kept his attention on Aimeric to stop a fight, nothing else. The hot blooded youth was his responsibility as much as the camp’s cohesion. 

“Imagine the little ice cube under his slave. The cock on an Akielon beast that size would melt him.”

Jord had become inured to the filthy language after years serving in the Regent’s palace. Govart’s may have been forced from the troop quickly, but Jord had enough memories of his rough voice from the palace. Through Damen and Aimeric’s presence, the comments became new and taboo again. Damen glared at the commenters, tore his bread viciously, and chewed as a beast might. Like Jord, he seemed to have accepted Laurent’s tolerance for gossip, but disliked being the subject of their fantastical speculation. Any man too close to Laurent was likely to be the subject of the gossip. Even Auguste got no peace in death. 

“Aren’t you close with him?” a man asked, reaching towards Aimeric, but pausing before he touched the elegant sprawl of him. It was one thing to speak of fucking a noble, another thing to reach out and touch one. 

Aimeric gave the soldier a look from the corner of his eye. Jord tensed at the hot flash of his gaze. 

“How would you get a leg over that bitch?” the man regrouped. Other men leered around the fire, curious to know how their betters would tangle together. Even Rochert, who had easily accepted Damen’s abstinence, was ignited with curiosity at the plausible idea of them. To Jord, the contrast of coldy restrained Prince Laurent with the fiery tempered Aimeric was tempting. Tension pooled in his belly. At least the two of them would both be titled and stand to benefit from the dalliance, unlike Jord. Men faltered in conversation as they waited for Aimeric’s answer. 

“Laurent is more snake than dog, although you seem as if you’d fuck either” Aimeric said, biting each lilting syllable. Then, consideringly: “I hardly think I would do different than you.”

This set off a round of laughter from the men. Jord appreciated that Aimeric’s defense of Laurent had been tempered with humor. He cut off his own thoughts of navy tunics peeled open by Aimeric’s fingers. 

“How does a noble fuck?” Lazar’s gaze slid to Pallas. Pallas smiled idly back, the foreign language washing over him but the boisterous spirits pleasant enough. Jord sighed.

“Yes, tell us!” Orlant said.

Aimeric took a slow sip of wine. The soft press of his lips seemed to only raise the men’s excitement for his answer.


	2. Chapter 2

“I would unlace him first. You know, the prince imports his fabrics from Arles so the sensation of it - they use silk from Seres in their brocade work. The Prince has such a throat, all the pets are jealous even if it’s corseted away all the time, and I’d reveal each inch of it as I untied him. Then the undershirt. I might have to go to my knees to pull it from his breeches and open him there.”

 

Half the men looked bored with the description of court fabric imports while the other looked as if they felt the soft brush of fabric. Jord looked at Aimeric’s elegant wrists as he gestured and compared them to Laurent’s when he held a sword; both were slender and noble, but Laurent had cords of practiced muscle that were only beginning to show on Aimeric. Jord’s own arms were thick cords of muscle with coarse hair and pale lines of scarring. Rough. It was too easy to imagine Aimeric’s pale fingers twisted together with Laurent’s or clutching the dark navy of the Prince’s tunics. Jord looked back to his own cup of wine. He took a desperate gulp. 

 

“I think I would take my time on my knees. He might put his fingers through my hair and push me down. At court he drove a horse to its death to kill a boar. He might drive me down on him as strongly, with his riding gloves still on and the buttons of his trousers only half undone. My chin might be pushed against the buttons of his breeches. There’s a guild now and only nobles can get them. Buttons, I mean, not cock warming. They wouldn’t just be tin, but gold alloy since he’s of the royal family. The buttons might press the crest impression into my throat if I pressed very hard against him and took him down to the root.”

 

Jord swallowed thickly. Orlant looked down at his own hand which, Jord remembered, had once wrapped around Aimeric’s throat in a fight in the armoury. Men were leaning forward, sweat on their brows as they came closer to the fire to better hear Aimeric. Even as he spoke of choking on his Prince’s cock, his voice seared each word with the distinct lilting style of court. He took another teasing bite, tongue flicking out teasingly just like a pet. The column of his throat looked too elegant to be distorted by the thrusts of a man’s length even as his swallowing made Jord imagine the tight heat. The image of the prince’s starburst buttons pressed to the boy’s chin and neck was in his mind and Jord knew how easily Aimeric bruised from the necklace of fingerprints he’d worn after his fight. Aimeric might wear the imprint of rough throat fucking after. Distantly, Jord heard a soldier groan helplessly as Aimeric grinned.

 

“And after I took him in my throat, he’d still be in control. He’d put me on the bed and get the oil. The oil might smell more of oud than the Akelion oil. Maybe Damen knows it, the way the scents layer over the olive oil so we don’t smell like Akielon beasts in their sweating bathhouses. And it’d be thicker with labdanum than you’re used to on soldier’s pay. Laurent would be generous with the oil, expensive as it is. He’d open me up. I haven’t been fucked in ages so I’d be tight. I’d cant my hips up and whine for his fingers. The same fingers that could have you flogged with a gesture would make me wet and open.”

 

Damen looked uncomfortable, a flush clear even on his bronze skin. Whether it was from the reference to his flogging or the memories of oil-slick fucking, Jord couldn’t know. Jord had smelled the kind of oil nobles used for fucking their pets. It was headier than challis scented baths and sometimes infused with the same bhang herb. Expensive too, only the Prince and King’s estates could regularly afford such a hedonistic luxury. In some noble’s bed, Aimeric had experienced these scented oils. Jord knew from rumors that Aimeric was easy to bed, eager to please. Many men at court had turned impetuous Aimeric lax with oil and pleasure, opened the boy on thick fingers sticky with oil. Laurent had drily warned him of the trouble Aimeric would cause passed between camp beds. But here, Aimeric said he was tight, unused since he’d left court. Jord could hear the pants of the other soldiers, greedy. 

 

“Laurent does nothing by half measures. There is a rumor back at Arles that Laurent spent the night with Ambassador Torveld before handing over the Akelion slaves to prove their training. Laurent instructed a pretty pale haired slave meant for Prince Damianos on how to please Torveld. The three of them spent all night demonstrating the value of Akelion pleasure slaves before the delegation left. And the Patrans left late the next day. Laurent with the filthiest mouth at court gave instructions to Erasme. Nobles fuck like that: the Prince ordered him how to take a fucking from the Ambassador of Patras. The pale gold of Laurent’s hair and the dark gold of the slave’s hair and cuffs twined together is more wealth than rough men like you’d ever see.”

 

Jord knew it wasn’t true. Jord knew Aimeric barely heard gossip that far south from court. Jord knew the Prince had strung Torveld along for his own reasons. Jord even knew from Damen that slaves did not tease and play games the way pets did. But he felt the traitorous twitching of his cock at the illicit fantasy. 

Of Aimeric in Erasmus’ place, ordered to please his commander. How easily Jord could lift and heft Aimeric’s slender body onto the soft cotton sheets in palace. Of Aimeric shuddering at Jord’s words of praise, inchoate and on the edge of melting. Eager Aimeric following the haughty orders of his prince and learning how to serve. Of Jord’s own cock fucking into the noble fourth son of Fortaine. Of Aimeric’s dark hair instead of gold, and Jord’s rough fingers tangling in it to pull him down on a thrust. The only thing that distracts him is the jostling of Lazar pulling Pallas away from the circle of enraptured men and nearly knocking Jord into the fire in his haste. 

“I’d take it, take him, take what my prince gave me and be grateful to be of service,” Aimeric gave a wistful little sigh. His dark green eyes caught Jord’s. “Does that answer your question?”


	3. Chapter 3

There was a long pause. The fire spat up crackling sparks. The man who had asked was flushed red and looked suspiciously as if he’d spent in his pants from Aimeric’s answer. Aimeric flourished under the attention, green eyes sparkling. He let the moment pull taut, grin a little cruel. 

“With that great mystery solved, I’m going to retire,” Aimeric said. Jord felt mildly grateful that the courtier had his own tent, set closer to the Prince’s in deference to his status. Jord was more grateful that the night guards posted near the tent hadn’t heard the ribald story tonight. No lust drunk soldier would be able to sneak into his tent tonight. Although the story would spread through the camp by tomorrow morning. Jord was also grateful to have the privacy of authority to deal with his own reaction.

With mumbled excuses and stiff gait, most men departed to their shared tents. Those who remained whispered as they eyed Aimeric’s retreating back. The braver of them twisted together in the shadows of the circle, barely private enough. Jord dreaded tomorrow morning. The Veretian practice of same sex coupling prevented bastards but brought new sexual discord in a camp of healthy and active men. There was likely to be howling all night. The orgy of a whole camp in fervor damped at least by the lack of camp followers.

“The two of them would make a pretty picture,” a man mused as he threw another log on the fire, “Think he’d come at a word of praise from his hero Prince?”

Jord was quiet. It was wrong to think of Prince Laurent that way, a young man he’d known since boyhood. And worse to think of Aimeric that way, only barely past boyhood and under Jord’s command. Jord’s wide shoulders hunched, sore with the ache of old fights. 

“Half the company was hot to fight him. I certainly was. Now they’ll fight each other to fuck him,” Orlant said, shifting uncomfortably to adjust himself. 

“The little firebrand’s going to have the whole company after him,” Damen laughed. 

“When are you going to bed him? Spare us the our misery of his teasing,” Orlant said to Jord. 

“I’m not going to bed the boy,” Jord insisted. 

“He’s hardly a boy,” another soldier interjected. “He’s about the same age as the Prince and likely to see fighting soon.” As if any of the men, aside from Damen, knew what fighting was. 

“And like the Prince, he’s a noble. Rough sort like us shouldn’t --” Jord was cut off.

“If you don’t, another man will soon enough. And Aimeric would prefer you,” Damen said. 

“It would be irresponsible for a low born captain to pursue an aristocrat under his service,” Jord’s voice was harsh. 

“Normally, I wouldn’t take advice from a man who’d get his dick out for a panther, but Damen’s right,” Rochert agreed. “Aimeric has no problem challenging you nor you rising to the occasion, as it were.” 

Tense, Jord collected his tin cup and stalked off to his own tent. It was going to be a very long night.

**Author's Note:**

> So like timeline wise, i originally wanted this to be before the attempted riot/coup within the camp. But then i included pallas bc i wanted to make clear that this was after that and aimeric was still around and everything was fine. That’s the reason why the placement in canon might be confusing. Anyway aimeric is never dying in my mind. 
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr is fichuntie](https://fichuntie.tumblr.com/)


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